There is a technique for determining the validity of a product recognized by an apparatus for registering a product to be checked out, the determination being performed when the apparatus recognizes the product to be checked out using a code for identifying a product such as the so-called barcode, by providing a weight sensor at a location where the recognized product is temporarily loaded. The term “validity” as used herein refers to the correct recognition of a product purchased by a customer in the apparatus for registering products to be checked out. In such a technique, it is determined whether the weight measured by the weight sensor matches the weight of a product linked with a product identification code based on both the weights.
Another example of a technique for properly determining the validity of a product recognized by an apparatus for registering products to be checked out is disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1. Patent Document 1 discloses a technique of acquiring, in accordance with reading a barcode for identifying a product, an image of an object (product) attached with the barcode and a basic diagram of the product associated with the barcode, and determining the validity of the recognized product by a correlation value calculated using the shape of the object recognized from the image and the basic diagram linked with the read barcode.
Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3 disclose a technique for identifying a product through object recognition based on an image. Specifically, Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3 disclose a technique in which a product image is linked with a product ID, the product image and an object included in a captured image are matched with each other on the basis of the hue of its surface, a pattern, a surface state such as irregularities of its surface, or the feature amount such as a shape, and a candidate of a product corresponding to the object within the image is determined by the degree of similarity therebetween. In addition, Patent Document 3 discloses a technique for detecting a region corresponding to a person's hand from an image using a thermo camera with the use of far-infrared rays, and performing the above-described feature amount matching, exclusive of the region.